Saying no to foolish consistency - blog repost

Tuesday, November 22, 2011

Adjustments and revisions

Time is a dressmaker specializing in alterations. ~Faith Baldwin

The ability to change our minds has to be one of the great gifts of being assigned life in human form. There is no rule or requirement that we continue to be who we were yesterday. If we can't change our spots, we can alter the way in which we judge them.

Revisions, adjustments, reconsiderations and about-faces are not signs of uncertainty but of awareness. I know discomfort is quantifiable and our wish to escape it, universal. Nothing else works quite as well as doing something - or everything - differently.

Think of these words as a kiss on the forehead, a blessing to go forward with a growing suspicion that not all of this is engraved on non-returnable marble. We are allowed, without being fined for littering, to leave ill-fitting notions, opinions, by the side of the road. Many of them will reappear to haunt and hector when we are vulnerable, but their visits will grown less frequent, their forms less substantial.

It may be foolishness taken to the extreme, but I have grown to believe that life, and our untidy, idiosyncratic ways of living it, are not meant to be sources of chronic disappointment. Whether we find happiness because of or in spite of our circumstances, a measure of peace and optimism is the goal.

Regardless of what you've heard or where you heard it, there is no such thing as too old to change. A feeble excuse at best, I can no longer even sell it to myself.

11 comments:

Angella Lister said...

Marylinn, you are a modern philosopher and this post is exactly EXACTLY what i needed to hear today. Every word here is simply perfect, thank you.

November 22, 2011 at 11:08 AM

Laoch of Chicago said...

Well said.

November 22, 2011 at 11:52 AM

Marylinn Kelly said...

Angella - Thank you. I am always reassured to know what is tugging at me is also loitering on the doorsteps of others. xo

November 22, 2011 at 3:32 PM

Marylinn Kelly said...

Laoch - Thank you. Happy Thanksgiving.

November 22, 2011 at 3:32 PM

Yvette said...

I'm trying to agree completely. Definitely trying. :)

Ah, what the heck, I do agree. You're never too old. I think sometimes I bash myself over the head with that and wonder if I mean it. Especially when I'm feeling especially fed up.

Enjoyed reading your well thought out post. Really.

November 22, 2011 at 3:49 PM

Yvette said...

And by the way, forgot to add: Have a GREAT THANKSGIVING!

November 22, 2011 at 3:50 PM

Elisabeth said...

I've been thinking about the need for change, too, Marylinn so I find your post helpful. It's so important to remain flexible and not to resist the inevitability of change, but to embrace it.

November 22, 2011 at 6:06 PM

Marylinn Kelly said...

Yvette - Thank you. No, when I try to tell myself some of the reasons (read: excuses) why change is no longer possible, I am not very convincing. Happy Thanksgiving to you. We will be enjoying our holiday video fest.

November 22, 2011 at 7:56 PM

Marylinn Kelly said...

Elisabeth - Thank you. My feeling, too, which is why the quote was so appealing: alterations go on forever.

November 22, 2011 at 7:58 PM

Claire Beynon said...

Another wonderful post, dear Marylinn.

Change (and sometimes we know this only once we are through it) is vital, a gift, our human imperative?

Yesterday, I heard the words 'Happiness is a result of gratitude, not the other way round. . . ' So much begins and ends in gratitude - and so much, in wonder. I lose sight of these truths at times but deep in my bones I know. Thanks for this permission-giving message, Marylinn, esp. 'We are allowed, without being fined for littering, to leave ill-fitting notions, opinions, by the side of the road. Many of them will reappear to haunt and vector when we are vulnerable, but their visits will grow less frequent, their forms less substantial. . . '. Yes, and thank you.
HAPPY THANKSGIVING dear friend. xo

November 25, 2011 at 8:52 AM

Marylinn Kelly said...

Claire - Thank you. Oh, it took me so long to learn that it all begins with gratitude, for every thing, in every moment. And when we notice the gifts, we find wonder and love. We have more choices than we realize, certainly more than I realized, and began to choose points of view, beliefs, emotions that made everything less fraught. If we never had those moments of conscious forgetting, we would be sages, holy women, not the creatures who go about turning over rocks with sticks that we are. Love to you, Marylinn

November 25, 2011 at 11:48 AM

Word of the Week - 89

House and Garden magazine, December 1969.

Inside H&G, Dec., 1969, a Gloria Vanderbilt Christmas.  One of her collages on the wall above.  Source.

Word(s) of the Week: CHRISTMAS MAGAZINES

Once upon a time I had a well-traveled, frequently-moved stash of December issues of all the house lovely magazines of the day.  Decorations, recipes, wrapping, homemade gifts.  Revisiting them each year was a source of inspiration and comfort.  I'd collected them since the end of the 1960s, through the 70s and into 80s.  Each year around this time, I'd pull out the stack and wander through them, one by one.

As I write this on Saturday, November 14, I recall how life's harder moments were softened by the sight of Christmas lights, thoughts of package wrapping to come, extravagantly decorated cookies that reminded me of those my mother created when my brother, sister and I were young children.  It was the early 1950s and, until Martha Steward introduced us to the art, perhaps in this century, I'd never seen anyone but our mom paint frosting on cookies.  A woman ahead of her time.

Too many changes of residence, not really so many in the larger picture but enough that shifting stuff from place to place lost its luster. and one November day I realized that my mood-lifting magazines weren't with me.  Earlier this year, an artist friend wrote to tell me she'd found on ebay a copy of the now-fabled and rare House and Garden December 1969 issue with the Gloria Vanderbilt Christmas and how it was all that she remembered before her copy had gone missing.  Trust me when I tell you these are photos we would all look at through magnifying glasses, wanting to capture each shy figure or nuanced grouping.  I was delighted for her and I wish there had been two copies.

I enjoy Christmas most by looking backward, at my own celebrations and those of others.  I still harbor dreams of stumbling into the shuttered shop or flea market booth where all manner of extinct gift wrap nestles in dusty cellophane, for sale at its original price.  When our hearts ache for any reason, we know instantly what will ease that sadness.  Mary Engelbreit and Martha Stewart, with their ribbons and color are perfect companions for me today, offering a place on their pages where all is merry and bright.  No more news, maybe fewer tears.  I do not believe it is shallow to find solace in beauty and memories of joy.  I believe those things exist exactly for that purpose.

Maya Angelou, Jean-Michel Basquiat Repost

Tuesday, November 13, 2012

Angelou, Basquiat and fear

Illustration by Jean-Michel Basquiat.

There IS a difference between frighten and befuddle, though when the lights are out and the water is rising, one might be mistaken for the other.  As I shiver in our 40+ degree dawns I think of Long Islanders who are still without electricity, for whom 44 might seem almost balmy.

I want a magic charm to keep up my sleeve.  I want rows of charms, worn bandolier-style like a Girl Scout sash with amulets in place of badges.  I want pockets for my ammunition in case life breaks out in forms too unexpectedly unwelcome.

Blog writers whom I follow as consistently as I can, which could be defined at the present as not very, confront daily events that would leave me shell-shocked, immobilized.  "Don't compare pain" is advice carried from various recovery group sessions.  Still.  Most of us are given circumstances that we are expected to endure, for it is not within our power to change them.  Once the whimpering, in my case, stops, comes time for the winnowing.  How can I see this (or these) differently, what CAN I change, is there peace to be found within discouragement, certainly within multiple imperfections?

Definitions can be adjusted, the word imperfect changed to read ideal.  How much are we handed that is ideal?   Life is a make-do business.  Mostly.  Am I frightened or am I resistant?  They are not the same.  Am I capable of evolving, of becoming the flexible, adaptable creature that survives growing older with optimism and good humor?  Can I believe in myself and my work when connections to the numinous suddenly feel thin and fragile?

Certainty would be a fine thing, certainty of the good outcome,  unfailing trust in resilience and the transcending of all which is irksome or unsettling, guarantees of safety, of wisdom, of ability.  Wish for the moon, then go back and read the contract.  The word guarantee does not appear.

When I feel, because of orbiting planets or undulating chemistry, that I am flimsy and vulnerable, fear starts to wriggle in under the tent or over the transom.  I forget that I am both wave and particle, solid and gas, earth and sky.  I become foggy and forget the only thing we can count on is change.  I lose the grasp on my gifts, that I am one among the great shape shifters, the mind changers, the course adjusters.  I am most frightened when I fail to remember who I am.

10 comments:

Angella said...

This is such a song of life, so inspirational really, even though you may not have thought you were giving succor with these words. They are beautiful. The remind me to endure, to remember that so much of this dance is fear, is illusion, and we only give in to all that when we forget who we are. Thank you.

November 13, 2012 at 10:34 AM

Marylinn Kelly said...

Angella - Thank you. Do you find everything to be a process, as I do? Everything needing to be worked from A to whatever letter we reach, and with good fortune finding something not too slippery to hold on to, the enoughness of us. Perhaps for today we can remember that we are that, enough. xo

November 13, 2012 at 11:07 AM

AZALEA ART PRESS said...

Wonderful post, Marylinn . . . and I love this book. It is still in my library after criss-crossing the country several times now and divesting myself of much of my library in the process.

You are much loved for your clarity, your clairvoyance, your crystal clear view of the human condition.

xoxoxo
Karen

November 13, 2012 at 7:41 PM

Marylinn Kelly said...

Karen - Thank you. How I missed knowing about the book until recently I can't say but was glad to have found it. We are certainly here, doing hand-to-hand with the human condition, are we not? xo

November 14, 2012 at 8:20 AM

susan t. landry said...

i did not know about this book, either--and i have to say it seems like an inspired collaboration. maya angelou has become a national salt-of-the-earth fairy godmother, with her beautiful voice and language and her no-nonsense spirit...and poor basquiat, a fallen angel, an artist manqué. your beautiful observations as usual, marylinn, take everything to another level.
thanx!

November 14, 2012 at 11:49 AM

Marylinn Kelly said...

Susan - Thank you. Inspired collaboration was just how I saw it. The images which disquiet, the words that reassure, their trajectories in such contrast. xo

November 16, 2012 at 12:11 PM

Antares Cryptos said...

Don't compare anything.

Looking up at the sky, knowing how inhospitable space actually is reminds me every time how improbable our existence actually is.

November 16, 2012 at 4:21 PM

Marylinn Kelly said...

Antares - Comparing is the dying star of old habits. It is/we are truly the most improbable result of infinite chances. xo

November 19, 2012 at 10:14 AM

RachelVB said...

I found this quote from Anias Nin: I must be a mermaid ... I have no fear of great depths and a great fear of shallow living."

I don't know why, quite yet, but your post reminded me of this. I suppose because no matter what we consider our flaws, we can define ourselves as something beautiful.

November 21, 2012 at 10:15 AM

Marylinn Kelly said...

Rachel - What a lovely thought, one to be held tightly. There are too many days when my limited vision has trouble finding beautiful. Aren't comparisons the most deadly things? xo

November 22, 2012 at 1:45 PM